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I remember the first time I played Prince of Persia -- it was on a ridiculously expensive IBM clone at the local Radio Shack. I was mesmerized by the lead character's astonishingly smooth animation, and the unique nature of the running, jumping, climbing gameplay. It was almost a platformer, but not quite; with Prince of Persia, Jordan Mechner created something entirely new, and we still haven't come up with a proper term to describe games like PoP and descendants such as Flashback and Blackthorne. Sadly, the PoP series descended into mediocrity with 1999's poorly-received 3D version, and I expected that to be the end of it.

Not so. Ubisoft's Montreal studio has picked up the license and enlisted the help of Mr. Mechner to return the series to its former stature. Much like Shinobi and Rygar before it, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time represents a bold re-imagining of its franchise; the plot is unrelated to prior games, but the gameplay, feel and style remain remarkably true to the spirit of the originals, with a little Ico thrown in for good measure. The result is an extremely solid game that, while not perfect, succeeds in both entertaining players and restoring luster to a once-tarnished franchise.

Running Up Walls

Much like its predecessors, The Sands of Time is a game of physical puzzles. If you step on a plate, a door two stories above your head may open. How do you get there before it closes? Such is life for a Prince, and you'll need to become intimately familiar with every last move, maneuver and stunt available to you to make it through alive. Your main challenge, then, is to figure out how to use these abilities in each room to avoid the spikes, saw blades, pincers, fires and other obstacles the evil designers have left in your path.

The new Prince is quite agile, and moves with a precision and accuracy that would make Chun-li jealous. Great new abilities like wall-running and wall-jumping add a welcome sense of freshness to the proceedings. There's never been a 3D action character that's moved quite like this, and every successfully completed wall-run dumps a little blue chunk of pure satisfaction directly into my soul. It follows that the character control is fluid and smooth, and the camera does a fine job of keeping up with the action.

Question: How does he rewind time after he's dead? Plot hole!

So if you die, it's fair to say that it's usually your fault. But unlike in the first PoP, dying is not overly frustrating -- you seldom go back very far. More importantly, you have a limited ability to rewind time. So, miss that jump? Just rewind and try it again. This is a brilliant way to lessen the inevitable frustration that can occur when you screw up a complex series of swings and jumps a hundred feet above the ground, neatly alleviating one of the main problems of the original game.

There's a good bit of enemy combat as well, just to keep things fresh. While solid, the game's fighting engine is not as polished as its platforming. Being attacked by four enemies at once can be fun, but there really isn't much skill or technique involved once you figure out that the block command is nearly unbeatable. Strangely, the combat seems to become easier as you approach the end of the game, as your life meter gets longer and you find progressively stronger swords. The enemies can't really keep up, and it makes the combat feel a bit like superfluous filler at times.